Vision

LUCSA envisions a society that is HIV competent and free of AIDS.

Mission

To support member churches in their call to serve God and society by mainstreaming HIV and AIDS in the life and ministry of the church. Through this process members will be strengthened to ensure an effective, competent and compassionate response to HIV and AIDS within the church and society.

History

The LUCSA member church leadership which included leaders of women and youth groups participated in the Pan African Lutheran Church Leadership Consultation on HIV and AIDS held in Nairobi in 2002. The participants at that consultation solemnly committed themselves and their churches to:

Break the silence on HIV & AIDS

Become healing communities through prayer and action

Learn and teach themselves and their communities about HIV & AIDS

Provide care and counselling

The prevention of HIV infections

Further develop their theological understanding of the challenges of HIV & AIDS

Collaborate and join hands with all those who are responding to the HIV & AIDS epidemic

Engage in advocacy

Respond to the needs of those affected by poverty and work towards securing the livelihoods of people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS

As a follow up to that consultation, LUCSA immediately began a process of developing an Action Plan which was launched at the LUCSA General Conference in June 2003 by adopting the LUCSA AIDS Action Program (LAAP).

LUCSA AIDS Action Program (LAAP)

LUCSA’s HIV & AIDS Program works through the LUCSA AIDS Action Program (LAAP)
The action plan focuses on the following activities:

Awareness building by exposing church leaders to successful programs in the region to enable them to break the silence, fight stigma and discrimination and provide accurate information on HIV & AIDS

Capacity building / training in all aspects of the HIV & AIDS ministry to enable member churches to be meaningfully involved in the response to HIV & AIDS

Clinical Pastoral Care and Counselling courses to equip pastors with knowledge and skills for the care of persons living with HIV (PLHIV) and those affected

Engaging in advocacy for PLHIV and those affected

Theological reflections on the challenges of HIV & AIDS and helping seminaries with mainstreaming HIV & AIDS issues into all theological subjects

Provision of financial support for member churches to kick-start their responses to HIV & AIDS

Facilitation of survival skills and treatment literacy workshops for persons living with HIV

Promotion of opportunities for open dialogue across all ages and gender groups including couples communication fora.

Promotion of community capacity enhancement to engage in conversations for collaborative responses

Our Successes

Since the launching of the program LUCSA has made some very significant strides in motivating, facilitating / enabling and strengthening the capacity of our member churches to respond urgently and purposefully to the HIV & AIDS epidemic.

The strengthening of the capacities of member churches has fostered a sense of open dialogue within the sub-region. As a result most of our church leaders are now speaking openly on HIV & AIDS issues and have programs running in their churches.

LUCSA HIV & AIDS Program has also contributed to the establishment of the following projects and the development of the sustainability of their structures:

iThemba la Bantu Community Project in Cape Town (South Africa)

St Peter’s Child Care in Johannesburg (South Africa)

Good Hope Home Based Care project in Johannesburg (South Africa)

Renasce Esperanca Orphan Care Project in Chimoio (Mozambique)

Bestseranai Advocacy Treatment Project in Mberengwa (Zimbabwe)

Feeding scheme for orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi

Info Hut Project in South Africa and Zimbabwe

To date, LUCSA has supported over a hundred community based projects through their member churches. All LUCSA member churches have full-time or part-time HIV & AIDS program resource persons who coordinate their programs.

Future Outlook

LUCSA is facilitating the mainstreaming of HIV and AIDS at all levels of the church and its programs to intensify prevention of HIV infection in all groups. It is also working to advocate against gender-based violence, promote universal access to medications, including ARVs, promote awareness on TB prevention and management, and to increase care and support of people living with HIV (PLHIVs), orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) and the affected households.